


maybe if i cry it won't hurt so damn much (redux)

by TheFledglingDM



Series: maybe [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Especially Hope, Expansion on Star Wars Theme, F/M, Female Friendship, Grieving, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Please Give Rey A Female Friend I Am Begging You (Part 2), Someone Takes Care of Rey For Once, Spoilers, The Rise of Skywalker - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21896470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFledglingDM/pseuds/TheFledglingDM
Summary: a year later, and rey and rose have another talk. this time the hurt is deeper, but she has more friends.contains spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: maybe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1577233
Comments: 10
Kudos: 51





	maybe if i cry it won't hurt so damn much (redux)

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to my other fic of the same title. 
> 
> i left the theater with the impression of "wow, that movie was So Good Except for the Last Five Minutes."

Everything _hurt._

Her arms, her legs, her stomach, her neck. Her head was a thousand pounds. Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked, her eyes swollen and sore. And her _chest_ \- there was a bone-deep ache that started behind her sternum and radiated into her stomach, her throat, her entire body. She was exhausted in a way that she never had been before, not when she scavenged the desert, or trained with Luke, or training before Everything Fell Apart.

It had been, what, two days ago? That she had nothing, only pieces of herself and the puzzle and the answer to how to end the war, and then she’d had _everything_ , and now she had - not nothing, but it wasn’t everything anymore. She had Finn and Poe and Rose and Chewie and Jessica and C-3PO and R2 and BB-8 and D-O and the rest of the resistance and her life and they were free, they were all free, it was over, and Rey had attended the first half hour or so of the _raging_ afterparty and then went into her room by herself and lay down and not gotten back up.

It had been - what, two days? Two and a half? And Rey had not moved except to use the refresher and change her clothes that first night. Her hunger had long since faded; she was used to being hungry, in any case. She had used the Force to heal what she could, but she could not focus through the tears.

Rey wasn’t sure if she hated sleeping or waking more. When she slept, she dreamed - _warm eyes, warmer arms, a brilliant smile, soft lips. Warmth fading, the weight in her arms lifting, and he was gone, gone, fading before her eyes._

Rey awoke sobbing, reaching out with all her strength to latch onto their tenuous dyad. It was thin, so thin, a sliver of silver thread that held them fast. She pulled and pulled and never felt a response, and the more she pulled the more she feared it would snap.

There was a knock on her door.

“Go away,” Rey said hoarsely. 

“No,” came Rose’s voice, and the door opened anyway. In came a trio of women: Rose, bearing a steaming bowl of something that smelled salty and hearty; Jessica, with a bottle of something an alarming shade of pink; and Zorii, whose hands were full of medical supplies. BB-8 and D-O rolled in after them.

“Up, up,” Jessica said bluntly, waving a free hand. 

“ _No_ ,” Rey said, knowing she sounded like a petulant child and not caring. She tried to roll over and burrow deeper into her blankets, but Zorii tossed the medical bag onto a spare spot and yanked off the scratchy wool. 

“I think the fuck not, Heroine,” She said. “Finn’s got himself up in knots in worry over you, which means _Poe_ is in knots worrying over him _and_ you. Think you’re going to starve yourself.” She looked Rey over critically. “They may have a point.”

“And Maz made soup,” Rose said cheerfully, sitting down beside Rey. She put the clay bowl in her lap and gently helped Rey into a sitting position.

Rey couldn’t remember when she and Rose had become friends, but perhaps it was when they met below the decks of the _Falcon_ and found themselves playing the same chord of sleepless heartache. Rose over her sister, Rey over Ben.

And now...Rey felt more tears coming to her eyes. At least then she’d had a Force vision. Now, she had nothing. He was gone, gone, gone.

“You look like shit,” Zorii said. Jessica shot her a look.

“If you’re not going to be supportive, you can leave.” 

“The woman who took down six of my crew and held a saber to my throat wouldn’t climb in bed for three days,” Zorii sniffed, but she sat on Rey’s other side and instructed her to “sit still, let me take care of that bruise.”

Jessica put the pink concoction in Rey’s hand and sat on the floor.

“What is this?” Rey asked, lifting it to her lips to sniff. The fruity, artificial scent of pomegranate covered something faintly metallic.

“Best not to describe it,” Jessica explained. “It’s something Snap cooked up. It’ll help you regain the electrolytes you’ve lost in your crying spiral.”

Rey took a sip of the drink. It wasn’t _good_ , not by any stretch, but it made Rey realize how parched she was and she chugged.

“Slow down, you’ll make yourself sick,” Zorii said. 

“Have some broth,” Rose encouraged her. “It’s warm, so you’ll have to take it slow.”

She carefully took Rey’s wrists and wrapped her hands around the bowl of broth. Rey stared down at where Rose’s hands, warm and calloused without her gloves, held her skin, and Zorii carefully dabbed antiseptic and bandaged her temple. Rey wondered, distantly, when she became so comfortable with physical contact. No longer was she the touch-starved waif of a girl she was when she joined the Resistance a year ago. Now she was strong, a Jedi, and she did not flinch when hands reached out to her. 

Obediently, Rey lifted the broth to her lips. It was smooth, rich, and dark, spreading warmth in her stomach. For a moment, it chased the chill away.

“This is really good,” she said. “You said Maz made this?”

“Yeah,” Jessica said, “Said it was an old family recipe. Called it a cure-all for everything, from the fever to a broken heart to a hangover. She’s had a pot going pretty much constantly the past few days.”

Rey snorted out a soft laugh. “How was the party?”

“How _is_ the party,” Rose corrected with a roll of her eyes. “And it’s still going strong. Seems like half the galaxy has pitched a tent - literally and figuratively - in the field beside the base. I’ve learned celebration traditions in eighteen different cultures in almost as many languages, and learned ten new drinking songs, and gotten plans for about thirty different aircrafts.”

“And I’ve slept with eight people, two of which actually managed to finish the job well,” Zorii said. Rey smiled into her broth. “In any case,” she added, leveling Rey with a stare that burned through even her helmet. “What’s gotten you holed up in here?”

Rey stiffened, despite the healing ministrations Zorii had moved to her arms. D-O rolled forward on its single leg, its head angled up towards her.

“Sad,” D-O observed, speaking in its concise way. 

“Yes,” Rey agreed. “I’m sad.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rose asked her. 

“Yes. No. I’m not sure,” Rey said, and she sipped the broth again to buy herself time.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Jessica said.

“But you _do_ have to shower,” Zorii said dryly. Jessica nudged her with her foot. Zorii nudged her back. “Even if you don’t want to talk, shutting the world out now will only make it harder later on. For now, even if you don’t have the energy to work through what you feel, you need to take care of your body. Wash it, feed it, water it.”

“I can’t move,” Rey whispered. “Everything hurts.”

“Here,” Jessica said, standing up. She nudged Zorii to the floor with the droids and sat cross-legged behind Rey’s back. With a muttered “hold still,” she started to dig into Rey’s back with her fingers in a bruising massage.

“ _Shit_ ,” Rey hissed out. “That _hurts!_ ”

“I imagine so, you’re hard as a rock,” Jessica observed. “When I do this for my girlfriend, she’s never this tense.”

“I think I saw a movie that started like this once,” Zorii said wryly, and BB-8 let out a series of beeps.

“Yes, that’s the movie I was talking about! Don’t tell me you’ve seen it? Where has Poe been taking you?” 

“You take the time you need, Rey,” Rose assured her. “We’ll all be here for you when you’re ready.”

The bowl stilled mid-rise to her lips. Rey knew that Rose didn’t mean anything by it - after all, no one knew what had happened, really, between her and Ben on the base. But the sudden reminder that all didn’t mean _all_ anymore, that her literal Other Half was barely there anymore, that the person who knew her the most and the best wasn’t there anymore.

Tears rolled down her cheeks silently as she stared ahead. She barely even felt Jessica’s hands as they continued in their ministrations. She moved from Rey’s back to her neck, running over tense muscles that barely gave way.

Rose lay her head against Rey’s shoulder, and she closed her eyes, trying to breathe. She focused on the scents of engine grease and smoke that clung to Rose’s jacket. She focused on the warmth of the bowl in her hands and the salt of the soup on her tongue, because if she focused on that, she wouldn’t focus on the thread around her soul, stretching, stretching, stretching out. 

_Be with me,_ she thought. She prayed. _Be with me, be with me, come back to me, please, this isn’t fair, it isn’t fair._

“It never is,” Rose said, and Rey realized that she had started speaking aloud. 

“I keep hoping,” Rey whispered, “That if I cry it won’t hurt so damn much. But it does. It doesn’t stop.”

“I know, Rey,” Rose said. She batted Jessica’s fingers away to wrap an arm around Rey’s shoulders. Zorii took the bowl away from Rey and set it on the floor so she wouldn’t upend it as the tears started afresh, and then she sat on Rey’s other side, a hand clasped in hers. Jessica wrapped her arms around Rey from behind, and Rey folded into herself, crying and crying and crying.

Because that’s what it was, Rey realized. That’s why it hurt. It wasn’t _fair_. It wasn’t _fair_ that she had gone through so much, it wasn’t fair that she had lost so much to Palpatine and his stupid war. Her mother and her father and her home and Han and Luke and Leia and her sense of self and Ben, Ben, _Ben_. Ben, who had finally broken Palpatine’s manipulative grasp on him and come to their side, and he had saved her life and kissed her and smiled at her and he _died_ , he was _gone_ , and the great, beautiful _maybe_ that was their future was dashed and ruined and ashes. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t _fair_. 

But this time, when she cried, she was surrounded with warmth and people who _loved her_ \- if not as Ben might have, could have, but in a way she had not been since her parents left. Her friends who supported her and were so kind and patient when she was paralyzed in her fear of everything. 

This time, when Rey’s sobs finally subsided into watery gulps and at last into long, deep breaths, the air filled her lungs deeply. She really felt sated, and warm, and fed, and she _really_ could use a shower. She cried and there was relief, a dam breaking, a festering wound bursting and draining and healing. Just a scab, tender and new. The injury could start to heal.

“Alright, there?” Jessica asked.

“You do kind of smell,” Rose observed, and Rey let out a watery laugh. 

“Fine, fine,” Rey said, wiggling away. I can take the hint.”

“It’s not a hint,” Zorii said, “I told you that as soon as I came in.”

Rey sent her a rude hand gesture and stepped into the refresher. When she stepped out some fifteen minutes later, it was to find her sheets changed, her bed made, and clean clothes lying atop the blankets. Rey found she had to wipe her eyes again for a different reason.

“Come on, we’re getting you some real food,” Jessica said. 

“Then we’ll take you out to the party,” Zorii added. “I know about half the camp wants to see you and about a dozen people want to bed you.”

“Ugh,” was all Rey responded with, wrinkling her nose. But she dressed and didn’t pile on any weapons. When she went to put up her hair, Jessica stopped her.

“Hang on, let me do it,” Jessica said. Rey acquiesced, and with practiced fingers she braided Rey’s long hair and tucked it up into a style reminiscent of Leia’s. Rey ran her fingers over the hair, touched.

“Thank you. You should show me how to do that sometime,” She said.

“You don’t know how to braid?” Rose asked, amazed. “My sister taught me every braid I knew.”

“Never had much time for braiding,” Rey said mildly. 

“And I never had much need,” Zorii said. She opened the door and led them all out to the party.

Rey felt the rising tide of energy and was momentarily buffeted with the high emotions - relief, amazement, shock, jubilation, all covering a depth of grief and bittersweet sadness that Rey had to stem her bond to the Force lest she fell to her knees. The din grew as it differentiated into laughter, yells, the odd argument, cheers and chants and songs, the yells of joy from a fighting ring where someone had set up some kind of tournament. The sky was a kaleidoscope of color in the sunset and the miles of burning bonfires and colored fire-sparks that rocketed into the air at odd intervals. Rey found herself standing and staring in awe, amazed at the riot of sound and color and emotion. She had never seen such a joyous gathering of so many people, happy and secure and safe and _not worried_. She had never quite appreciated that distinction before, but now, staring at this sea of people united in heart and mission -

 _This is what it was about,_ Rey realized, the truth settling like a warm sunbeam in her chest. _This is what we fought for, what we died for. This is what we hoped for. And I would do it again, in every galaxy, in all my lifetimes. This is what the Jedi stood for._

“Ladies!” Came Maz’s cry as she left the kitchens with a massive pot of stew in her arms. It was nearly the size of her torso, and she needed a very merry and red-faced Snip to place the pot on the table. Her literal burden lifted, Maz waved them over to her. “Come, rejoin the party! Or join, I should say,” Maz said, sending Rey a significant look.

Rey ducked her head, trying not to appear shamefaced and failing. “I’m sorry, Maz. I just needed - space.”

Maz looked up at her, orange eyes looking into her core. “You grieve, my child,” She said, and she grasped Rey’s hand with cool, scaled fingers. “To your core. But you will heal, child, so long as you follow your heart. Do not let fear paralyze you.”

Rey blinked at Maz’s vehemence. Was she trying to communicate more, here? Did she know of the silver thread wrapped around her heart, the one she feared of either squeezing her in half or of cutting loose altogether? But then Maz smiled.

“But now, rest. You have earned it. And I can think of at least three very handsome young men who would love to see you,” Maz told her. “Get some food, some drink, and enjoy the night. I do not think the parties will stop anytime soon.” 

She left, and their group moved on, Rey allowing Rose to tuck Rey’s arm into hers and tugging them into the crowd. She passed Rey something strong and sweet that made her sputter, briefly, before pulling her towards her friends, and Rey laughed when Rose muttered something to her about Poe and Finn making up to each other following the past few days of arguments, and for the next few hours, only her muscles hurt.

The thread in her chest held, and held, and Rey clutched it as tightly as she could.

**Author's Note:**

> Well now I have to add more so expect a part 3 to this series. i, too, have Issues with the way this movie ended.


End file.
